Donald Trump has spent his political life treating the press as a prop. Friendly outlets are the audience he performs for, while hostile ones are the villains he performs against. But the president has never had to confront a prop that has stopped cooperating. It’s why he has spent several days raging at nearly every corner of the media, including the one network he has long treated as his own. Increasingly obsessed with controlling the image of his political decline rather than reckoning with reality, Trump has set out on a campaign of intimidation as his usual spectacle starts to finally fizzle out following more than a decade of domination. But browbeating Fox News and continuing to sideline CNN and POLITICO cannot conceal what is there in plain sight: shrinking crowds and falling poll numbers.

Over a whirlwind weekend of rallies across Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, the cracks in the MAGA facade became impossible to ignore. Trump has always treated crowd size at his rallies as a proxy for legitimacy and domination. In his eyes, the image of an overflowing arena functions as proof that the country loves him, that the media lies about him and that his political project remains invincible. This is why the sight of empty seats in high school gymnasiums and muted cable coverage that tell a less flattering story cuts so deeply. 

“In actuality, my Events for very good Republican Politicians are probably more crowded than ever. There are no empty seats, there haven’t been for years, and there never will be. The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever,” he wrote on Truth Social Monday, demanding that “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty.” The president was referencing a Times report that during an event on Friday, Trump’s venue on the campus of the University of South Alabama was not full and that Trump’s midterm campaign swing feels “more like a farewell tour.”

But the day before, Trump had turned his fire on a less obvious target.

“Sad to see that Fox & Friends (Sunday) is not covering our packed house and incredibly enthusiastic (beyond!) Rally that took place in Ohio last night, or the ones in Alabama, Texas, or Oklahoma over the past two days,” he posted on Truth Social Sunday morning. The rallies were “absolutely phenomenal, better than ever,” he insisted. “Our people want to see our Rallies, and reports on our Rallies, on FoxNews, or they will very quickly stop watching (like I am doing right now!).”

It was the second time in five days Trump had attacked the conservative media powerhouse by name, and this time he brought a hit list. He accused Fox of forcing Democrats down MAGA’s throats and demanded to know who fired “the great Maria Bartiromo,” the ex-host who reportedly shared internal network communications with the administration. “Who makes these decisions at FoxNews?” Trump asked, before demanding the network cover his “happenings” or soon have the ratings of “FAKE NEWS CNN or MSNOW,” because “Fox tried this act once before, and almost went out of business (and always right before an election!). That can happen again!” 

But Fox had already covered the Ohio rally before Trump posted his tirade. A Snapstream search found that “Fox and Friends Weekend” aired a segment on his event supporting Senate hopeful Jon Husted and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in Vandalia shortly before Trump’s post, focusing on his data center comments. Significantly, though, the network’s pattern across the four-state swing shows that hosts tease the president’s speeches, throw to a live correspondent report, but rarely air the rally live. While Fox didn’t air Trump’s Ohio speech live, it ran a report at the top of the hour and showed Ramaswamy warming up the crowd. The network did the same in Alabama on Friday, and in North Carolina last month. 

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There are exceptions. Sean Hannity cut into his show on Thursday and aired 36 uninterrupted minutes from Oklahoma. But the usual approach is no secret — and it didn’t start this weekend. Tellingly, after Trump’s attacks, Fox opened “The Five” and “The Will Cain Show” on Monday with rally clips. 

The president has been escalating his rhetoric against the network for months. In April, he told Fox executives to “take Jessica Tarlov off the air.” He has also gone after hosts Bret Baier and Shannon Bream, complaining that the latter failed to challenge a Democratic congressman on her Sunday program. As CNN’s Brian Stelter noted, Fox has calculated that Trump’s rallies — which are long, repetitive and rarely produce news — are “not a ratings magnet right now.” The Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Texas apparently was not either, meriting just one segment on “The Five” per day; most speakers were never shown on the network. Ironically, the unprecedented spectacle resulted in a rare reverse bounce that left Trump’s net approval declining and the Democrats’ advantage on the generic ballot increasing. 

When CNN’s Kristen Holmes asked Trump about the NBC News/Telemundo poll that found his approval with Latino voters at just 27% on Monday, he cut her off, “You’re fake news! You’re CNN. You’re fake news. My poll numbers are great, and all you have to do is look at the crowds we’re drawing.” Days before, he delivered a characteristically crude address that singled out CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins in front of a hostile crowd, eliciting angry boos and vicious chants. Trump’s media strategy depends on collapsing every unfavorable fact into the same category: enemy propaganda.

The administration’s treatment of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO made that purpose impossible for even the White House press corps to ignore. On Monday, the White House barred POLITICO from traveling aboard Air Force One, preventing the outlet from fulfilling its role in the presidential press pool, having been scheduled to serve as the print representative. Trump has already kicked CNN out of the television pool on the plane, replacing it with friendly outlets including LindellTV and Real America’s Voice. 

The legal fight over that control comes to a head Thursday, when Trump-appointed federal Judge Timothy J. Kelly is scheduled to hear arguments on whether to extend the block on the president’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House. Last month, Kelly issued a temporary restraining order requiring the administration to restore the outlets’ credentials, rejecting, at least at that stage, the administration’s national security rationale for yanking access.

The Justice Department nevertheless asked the court late Friday to permit the ban’s reinstatement, suggesting in the government’s filing that “bona fide journalists would identify sources instead of relying on anonymous sources.” This reasoning is especially rich, coming from a White House that routinely briefs reporters on background, requiring them to grant anonymity under its own ground rules. One “reporting incident” cited against POLITICO was a June story quoting a “senior administration official” — exactly the arrangement the White House demanded. 

From the courtroom to Truth Social, Trump’s increasingly unhinged media attacks expose a serious weakness in his political model. He is a president with nothing to sell. But he needs constant confirmation that his movement is growing. When even Fox News declines to provide uninterrupted validation, the illusion becomes harder to sustain.

The American public is increasingly seeing through MAGA’s smoke and mirrors. Ultimately, no amount of bullying, executive bans or early morning social media rants can paper over the fact that one month before the midterm elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added six more candidates to its “Red to Blue” list this week, districts Trump won by an average of 16 points or more in 2024.

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The Supreme Court convened on Monday for another exciting round of “how far will they go?” and, as luck would have it, the putative leader of the conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito, is out on a book tour talking about the philosophy that will guide their decisions. 

“So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country” is a collection of essays adapted from speeches he has given since 2007, many with straightforward titles, including “Let Judges Be Judges.” While an associate justice, Alito’s power on the Court shouldn’t be undersold. While all the other conservatives justices — aside from Clarence Thomas — don’t openly identify as originalists, they have shown themselves happy to follow Alito’s lead when it suits their ends. In fact, the so-called Roberts Court, named by tradition after the chief justice, is a misnomer. It’s really the Alito Court, which should send a chill down your spine if you have any concerns about where America is heading.

Alito gave a long interview to CBS News legal correspondent Jan Crawford, addressing a wide range of issues. One wouldn’t call him a charming personality, but he is compelling in his absolute confidence in himself and his ideas. At 76, he seems to be just getting started. He admitted to Crawford that he thinks about retiring, as anyone his age would, but he doesn’t have any intention of doing so at the moment, a fact that must come as a disappointment to both President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are struggling to hold on to their majority. 

Considering the sad example of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both Alito and Thomas would have done conservatives and Trump a big favor if they had retired during these first two years of Trump domination. Had they done so, they would have been seen as heroes to their fellow right-wing activists. 

Trump may think his legacy is in the hideous monuments he’s building to himself, but the Court’s conservative majority will be the lasting mark of his reign. He has already appointed three — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — of the six conservative justices, and if he were able to appoint two more in the vein of Alito and Thomas, but 30 years younger, he would likely seal the nation’s future and benefit his wealthy cronies for generations to come. 

Even if the pair had merely hinted they might resign, it would have given the Republicans something to run on in the midterms. Should the Democrats win a majority in the Senate, as they are now increasingly expected to, come January any hopes of appointing a far-right conservative in Alito’s image are dead for at least the next two years. If a vacancy were to happen, presumably the Democrats would invoke the McConnell precedent and keep the seat open until a new president is elected. 

But right now Alito and Thomas are at the height of their power and influence — and they aren’t going anywhere. “I think I can still make a contribution,” Alito told Crawford. “And it’s hard to give up the opportunity to do something that I think will be good for the Constitution and good for the country as long as I’m able to do it.” As Kevin McMahon, a political science professor at Connecticut’s Trinity College, told Reuters, “They have been waiting for a long time to be in the position. So why leave?”

Why leave indeed? Crawford’s analysis of Alito’s power on the Court is that he is now the fulcrum on which its decisions are made. “Alito is especially skilled in bringing together five justices for a majority on some of the Court’s most difficult and contentious issues,” she observes. “The justice often publicly portrayed as unyielding and inflexible is, behind the scenes, the conservative who is uniquely adept at finding common ground on the most divisive issues.” 

Alito is certainly having some success with his signature issue, the unitary executive, having been a champion of the right-wing theory since the 1980s, when he worked for Ronald Reagan’s hyper-partisan Attorney General Ed Meese in the Justice Department. As Alito defined it back in 2000, before he was elevated to the high court, the “president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power — the whole thing.” He believes the president has the sole authority over federal agencies and sees presidential power as dominant — well, unless the Supreme Court disagrees and says otherwise. 

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All this may seem to be in conflict with Alito’s guiding philosophy of originalism, but he explains that away by calling himself a “practical originalist” who believes that the Constitution is a sort of sacred text that must be taken literally as it was understood at the time of its adoption — unless it just doesn’t seem right. Last week, he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Even Originalists Make Mistakes,” in which he listed legal scholars and practitioners who, in his estimation, aren’t following the one true creed. But Alito admitted that he, too, must sometimes deviate from the path and make a “reasonable judgment call” that may require him to overturn precedents and that “conditions” may “militate against scholarly purity.” 

The justice goes to great lengths to deny that he has any partisan interest, but it’s clear throughout the interview and from his other comments over the last few years that he’s highly partisan and influenced by the right-wing hysteria over the “woke” left. Alito expressed grave concern about presidents criticizing the Court for its decisions, saying that Joe Biden was particularly harsh. But when pushed a bit, he admitted that Trump has been harsh too. That false equivalence is so fatuous it’s embarrassing that a Supreme Court justice would have the gall to utter it.

Biden condemned the Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade by calling it a “tragic error” and “an extreme and dangerous path the court is now taking us on.” The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision did, after all, overturn a constitutional right that had been in effect for 50 years, one that numerous conservative justices had told the Senate and country they considered to be settled law. Trump, on the other hand, has said that members of the Court, especially those he appointed, are “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution,” when they vote against his wishes. But he hasn’t stopped there. They are also, he said, “an embarrassment to their families, if you want to know the truth” and a “disgrace to our nation.” But then Trump loves Alito and says he “wants to make America great again,” so perhaps the justice agrees with him about his brethren. And why not? They are aligned on virtually every issue. 

As the Court’s new term begins, Alito is clearly feeling his oats. He wants to have the influence and power to decide the radical cases that are coming before the court as a result of Trump’s unprecedented power grab under the unitary executive theory. The project is his life’s work. So he’s staying.

But that doesn’t mean that Democrats didn’t dodge a bullet when he refused to retire so Trump could name a young replacement. These days it may be hard to imagine anyone worse than Samuel Alito, but just think about who could have been next. How does Justice Todd Blanche or Justice Aileen Cannon sound?

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